John Amato, Crooks & Liars Founder Speaks in LA

In Over the Cliff: How Obama’s Election Drove the American Right Insane, John Amato and coauthor David Neiwert show that the Tea Party “movement” was not the organic uprising it was made to appear, but rather was kick-started by FOX News and follows in a long tradition of movement conservative activism that harkens back to the street theater days of Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist.

John Amato will speak and sign his groudbreaking book at a fundraiser to support the LA Media Reform Group’s annual media summit (to be held February 26, 2011):

John Amato Reading
Friday, July 16, 7:30 p.m., in Beverly Hills
(Address available after RSVP)
RSVP to lamrg@commoncause.org
Suggested donation of $35 includes signed copy of “Over the Cliff”

Amato is the founder of Crooks and Liars, one of the nation’s most influential progressive weblogs. A pioneer of video blogging, he was part of CNN’s election-night coverage in 2006 and has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Forbes.

“If you want to understand the forces behind the extreme demonization of President Obama and the assault on progressive America, look no further than Over the Cliff. With witty analysis and thorough investigative reporting, Amato and Neiwert provide a definitive chronicle of the far-right’s rapid movement from paranoia to outright violence. —Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party.

The LA Media Reform group is sponsoring this event in collaboration with the LA Progressive and Alliance Hollywood.

The Los Angeles Media Reform Group focuses on holding news accountable to the public interest and encouraging citizens to create their own media, and to be critical consumers of the mass media. Its next annual workshop will be Saturday, February 26th, 2011, at Occidental College. Compete the survey to help select speakers, workshops, and topics.

The LA Progressive is a two-year-old electronic magazine that comments daily on issues of political, social, and cultural consequence to progressives in Los Angeles and everywhere.

Alliance Hollywood is a social advocacy group that utilizes the voice, media and financial power of the entertainment industry to fight corporate interest groups on Capitol Hill. For more information, go to: www.AllianceHollywood.org

Questions? Contact us at lamrg@commoncause.org

Posted on July 1, 2010

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LA Progressive, its publisher, editor or any of its other contributors.

Comments

41% of the Tea party crowd are not Democrats. Most are hard core right wing conservatives. Look at the NY Times/CBS polling and the new Gallop poll. Where did you get the 41% number? I’m just curious.
Chris Cillia writes in the WaPo: “New data out of Gallup suggests that premise isn’t right, as nearly seven in 10 tea party supporters describe themselves as “conservative Republicans.” All told, nearly 80 percent of tea party supporters describe themselves as Republicans, while 15 percent say they are Democrats and just six percent are, in their own minds, “pure independents.”?http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/republican-party/tea-party-as-the-republican-pa.html

You are mistaken. The tea parties were started by the libertarians 4/15/07 ramped up for the 12/16/07 anniversary of actual tea party when they raised 6.38 million dollars for the Ron Paul for president campaign and now that the tea party movement has grown various elements are fighting to claim credit and take control. 41% of the tea party patriots are democrats, some are republicans some are constitution or libertarian party members all are independent thinkers that want less government spending and less control of their lives! It started because of the patriot act and FISA bill and grew because of the Bush bailouts then Obamas ramping up the wars and SPENDING OUR MONEY to bail out his rich friends! If none of this is pissing you off you are not paying attention.

Here here, I am sorry but Hollywood is losing their grip on the progressives as well as the conservatives. Perhaps people are actually starting to think for themselves. It’s the old divide and conquer which is the oldest trick in the book. Perhaps the tea party is not perfect but at least they address real issues, not media controlled talking points. Freedom is not a spectator sport….

Perhaps it’s a quibble, but our problem does not have much to do with sanity, however nutty it appears; it has everything to do with power, fear, and ignorance.

The power centers and big money interests driving the “insanity” are perfectly reasonable, in terms of their their self-interest and their fear of losing control. Obama is a huge threat to their “normal” way of living and operating, and they know it. (They are spoiled, and deeply unwise, to think that they cannot live without vast wealth, power, and control, yet unwisdom is not insanity either.)

And so for political power (in a nominal democracy), they turn to the ignorant, and work upon their fears, to build alliance with the masses of votes they need.

Which leads to the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Yet the people are not insane either; ignorance is not insanity.

So, strategically, we need to curb the vast power of money over politics, and educate the people.

In the shorter term, we need to prioritize our battles to protect paths to these strategic goals, so that they remain realistically available to progressive forces, in America and the world.

One very high priority thing we should work on is to educate and alert the very large number of reasonably well-educated, reasonably progressive people in America and abroad to the nature and seriousness of the dangers we face. We actually have a lot of power, if we can just use it intelligently and coherently.

I agree with Bill to a large extent, but rather than focus broadly on “educating the people,” what we really need to do is engage and organize around concrete campaigns for measures that will improve peoples’ lives.

The progressive forces that made Obama’s victory possible de-mobilized too rapidly. Now is the time to re-commit to building grassroots movements that will hold politicians of both parties accountable when they fail to end ridiculous wars, scapegoat immigrants, trample on the Constitution, and perpetuate social and economic injustice.

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